Discussion

Help me plan a Chinese Banquet for 15+ ppl

Next weekend I will be going with the inlaws to a tiny town in the south of Spain to participate in the annual pig killing/sausage making event. While everyone is busy mixing spices and onion with pig blood and stuffing it into innards, I have been asked to cook the family meal.

I’m going to cook a modified Chinese banquet (I’d like to introduce some of my family traditions to the table as well). There will be about 15 people. All Spanish and avid meat eaters! The audience runs the gamut from the principle sausage maker (a 60 year old woman who is quiet fond of Chinese food since she worked in a Chinese restaurant for several years) to more conservative people who do not have any experience eating cuisine that is not Andalusian.

I would like also to keep things relatively simple because it will just be me cooking and I still need to do my share of sausage stuffing!

Menu looks fine. You don't want banquet foods really, but jia chang (homestyle) for times when a family is working together, and you don't need a lot of dishes but a few that are easy to prepare in quantity. You might look for a couple of make ahead cold dishes to start.